posted 03-05-201206:16 AM
YAY for my grade nine gym teacher. She had told us that she would do her best to answer any questions that we could come up with in health class, and one particularly brave student asked her if she thought that girls should masturbate. The teacher said that she thought that it made a lot of sense to get to know your own body, before you let someone else get to or before you got to know someone else's. She then proceeded to draw a diagram on the board which showed the vulva and labeled the clitoris. I had never even hear of the clitoris before, and the teacher explained that it was most of the nerve endings that a man has all over his penis, centered in one very small area. She explained therefore that it can be even harder for women to reach orgasm if they don't know their bodies.

I was scandalized, I was close-minded, and besides, wasn't masturbation dirty and wrong? And I had thought only men could masturbate.

But one wonderful teacher open the doors for me on open mindedness with sexual stuff, and it was after that teacher brought it to my attention that I COULD masturbate, that I started.

Thank you so much Ms D. Without you, I may never have been comfortable with my body, because I may never have been aware that it was physically possible, or morally permissible, to masturbate. Ms D. may not have given me all the sex ed I ever got (Scarleteen has given me so much more), but she gave me the first instance of 'sex-can-be-something-other-than-intercourse-between-a-mother-and-a-father sex ed' that I ever got, and it changed my views on my body forever. I was scandalized for a while that she would discuss that in school, but it planted a seed of doubt in all of the false things that I had ever thought about sex and sexuality. It led to me masturbating, which led me to being more open, which led me to Scarleteen, or something like that , not necessarily in that order.

I'm so glad you were helped in this way, Moonlight (and that you're here on the boards; you're lovely to have around an extremely helpful to everyone!).

I'm sure all those other students in the class have also been helped by this and because this information is so hard to find (and so radically different from what we've internalised), I'm sure this advice and info is remembered by the others; as memories like this - so freeing - tend to stick around for a lifetime.

I had believed masturbation to be scandalous, too, because none of my sex ed teachers over the years talked about it or even brought it up.

It came up though by chance in a conversation with my mom. She relieved me of my fears surrounding the subject, and presented it as a perfectly natural aspect of one's sexuality.

I'm glad that Ms. D talked about masturbation in class with you guys. I think that it should be an essential part of sex ed in school.

--------------------"Sneak away, sneak away / If the fate is too sad / You are not a flower of hell / That kind of place... / Don't become lost, don't become lost... / Or you won't be able to grasp the entangled hand / The cry also has a limit...." - Naraku no HanaPosts: 537 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Dec 2011
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...I'm glad that Ms. D talked about masturbation in class with you guys. I think that it should be an essential part of sex ed in school.

Thirded.

--------------------Always knock before entering my room when I am in there alone, as I may be doing all sorts of wonderfully thrilling things that I'd rather you didn't see.Posts: 840 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2008
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